This infographic wakes up a desire for a unified online experience in the future. Developers for mobile, tablets, laptops, TV:s, cars, intelligent homes and all other potential devices that will be connected in the future must rethink their urge to get a quick fix and find a seamless way for humans to use technology.

What time do your readers normally browse through their inboxes? When are they most likely to open and click? Do they read messages that are more than 12 hours old? GetResponse set out to answer these questions in our latest research on open-and-click times and came up with some interesting conclusions.

This involved analyzing 21 million messages sent from U.S. email accounts during the first quarter of 2012 to determine the top result for the following metrics:

Open time

Click-through time

Recipients’ top engagement time

The really important finding was that all email messages, no matter what time they were scheduled for, get most opens within the first hour from delivery (up to 23%).

This means that if a message is sent too early (or too late) to top engagement times, it will miss the chance of reaching its maximum results. It simply cannot wait in the inbox for too long.

The research confirmed that the subscribers are most engaged with their inbox content during the working hours: Scanning emails is the first thing they do when they start work — 8-10 a.m. Then, their inbox activity goes down, with the lowest results around lunch, and goes up again shortly before leaving work — 3-4 p.m.

An interesting thing is that the average click rate also increases around 8 p.m., which might mean that this is the time when recipients read through their messages with more attention.

As the research shows: to achieve best possible results, you should schedule delivery of your email taking into consideration the following:

Emails reach the best results within 1 hour after landing in the inbox.

If your recipients are occupied with other activities, they won’t be able to engage while it’s still fresh, and your message will be crowded out by more recent messages

To optimize the engagement rates for your message, you should schedule it to hit the inbox no later than 1 hour before the top open times, when its chances of getting noticed are the highest.

If your emailing's go to worldwide lists, make sure you use solutions that optimize delivery times in different time zones

So what can you do? The idea of NCSAM is to help get the word out and to protect yourself.

It more important than ever to safely manage your passwords. Password theft has increased by 300% so far in 2012, and that trend will continue to grow. So how can you manage those passwords safely?

With social media, email, shopping, banking and dating, a lot of your life is online and on your phone. Each one of these applications uses a password to protect your sensitive data, but how do you keep them all straight?

Here are some tips from DHS.gov to share with friends, family and your social networks:

"The Google quality score is an estimation of how relevant your landing page, keywords, and ads are to the keyword you’re targeting as well as the people viewing your content, where your ad will be located on the page, and how much Google is going to charge you for your ad location."

Here, Digital Net Agency,takes a close look at Quality Scores and discuss how to improve yours.

This Infographic by Symphony Teleca shows that consumers rely on peer recommendations: Links to user-generated content on social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google +, Pinterest) make up a quarter of the search results for the top 20 brands in the world.

In response to that growing number, 85 % of people have already anticipated changes in their buying behavior.

Customer reviews, questions and answers, internet forums and user-generated videos are the social and community tools that influence consumers the most.

This Infographic also shows how mobile devices, real-time access to review sites and social networks impact consumers’ buying decisions and overall retail experience.

167 million people will shop online this year, spending an average of $1,800 per person, it reveals.

Unsurprisingly, shoppers are using their smartphones to look for sales and special deals, as well as read product reviews and ratings.

64% of smartphone owners shop online using their devices;

40% of Twitter users say they search for products on the microblogging tool; and

60% of Facebook users say they would discuss a product or service if they were offered a discount

It also breaks down how companies such as Walmart and Starbucks are using social networks to engage shoppers. It also looks at how businesses are using mobile point of sale (POS) transactions to get insight into consumer data, sales records and inventory.

Creating HTML emails that will look awesome on the dozens of email programs out there is tricky. If you’re new to the email world (or have picked up HTML in the last several years), learning how to get an email to look good can be a little trying. Worse, there are no email-specific standards in place.

Ideas have been stolen for centuries and protection against this behaviour is extremely difficult. Beyond the Internet, companies just copy the unprotected parts of complete products, hence not truly in violation of any law.

For online entrepreneurs it is far more difficult.

Code is only partially protectable as code under U.S. law no property represents.

"Cloners" occur as a result of this gap in the U.S. legal system. Under current law, without morals, code and design are copied / cloned.

Clones can create problems.

When you come up with an idea, you want that idea to be yours so that authenticity becomes operative.

Why should someone who steals something you created leech off of your success?

In this age of computer//internet intangibility it’s hard sometimes to draw the line.

With this Infographic, ReputationsVerteidiger, wanted to show how this industry has evolved and how startups can protect themselves.

Use Google Docs as a free website monitoring tool to track unlimited number of domains and receive instant email and SMS text alerts when any site is down.

You can use Google Docs to monitor your website’s uptime and get instant alerts if your site is down or unavailable to visitors. The latest version of this Google Docs based website monitoring tool is even better:

You can now monitor multiple websites and blogs for downtime/uptime in one go.

In addition to email alerts, you can now choose to receive SMS alerts on our phone if any of your sites are down.

The text alerts are routed through Google Calendar and are therefore free.

In fact, this is probably the only tool that lets you monitor unlimited number of website domains and offers both SMS and email based alerts without charging a penny.

Here’s how you can install the monitor in Google Docs in less than 60 seconds:

Real-time Website Monitor with Text Alerts

Click here to create a personal copy of the Website Monitor HD sheet in your own Google Docs account.

You’ll see a new Website Monitor menu in the toolbar. Click Initialize and you’ll get a pop-up asking for authorization. Just say Yes.

We’ve pulled together a resource which rather than aiming to tell you everything, instead tells you exactly what you need to know to get your own website up and running in no time.

Business owners are aware of the increasing importance of having an online presence; regardless of whether their key objective is using their website to sell online, to generate enquiries, or act as a branding tool. However the costs associated with building and particularly maintaining a website can quickly become a drain on business owners.

WordPress is a platform that appeals to many, as even if you have no coding experience you can set up a website and manage it yourself.

This step-by-step guide takes the guesswork out, so you'll be up and running in no time.

Another year has passed since the 2011 edition of 79 Link Building Resources where Kristi Hines listed various blogs, their top link building posts, and some great link building tools to add to your toolkit.

Those blogs, to this day, are still great resources to visit when looking for posts on link building.

Since that post was published, a lot of things have changed in the link building world.

In this 2012 edition of link building resources, covered is the big changes that have happened in the link building world as well as what works (and doesn’t) when it comes to link building strategy.

There you have it!

A Comprehensive Compilation of 79 Great Link Building Resources to chew on.

How do retailers develop and execute on the right digital and off-line cross channel strategy to maximise consumer engagement?

In today’s multichannel world, the boundaries between virtual and physical stores are blurred and competition from international retailers is growing. The local retail landscape has irrevocably changed - from “bricks and mortar” to “bricks and clicks” to purely “e-tail” – the evolution of retail is ongoing and carries significant ramifications for those who choose not to keep up with the pace of change.

Experian Marketing Services commissioned research amongst 300 Australian retailers from B2B and B2C organisations to gain a more complete picture of the Australian e-commerce environment.

This report examines the retailers’ responses, and draws upon the Experian Marketing Services experience and expertise in the online retail environment to provide commentary on the current state of online retail in Australia. It offers a way forward for those retailers seeking to overcome perceived barriers and develop a sound e-commerce strategy that will carry their business into the future.

This is the H1 2012 edition of the 100 Million Club - the watch list of the top mobile platforms and handset manufacturers.

This Infographic by VisionMobile will give you some insights into the mobile market and help put things into perspective.

Here are some of the insights:- Smartphone sales penetration continues to accelerate, growing from nearly 30% in Q3 2011 to nearly 40% in Q2 2012- Nearly 2 out of every 3 smartphones shipped in H1 2012 were Android devices- Despite low device sales, the Windows platform already has over 100K available apps in Windows Marketplace- Although Symbian is obsolete, it still has a sizable installed base – larger than bada and Windows Phone combined- In the handset market, Apple and Samsung account for 63% of revenues and over 98% of the profits, depriving other vendors of oxygen and therefore the ability to invest in handset differentiation and marketing- In the smartphone market, Apple and Samsung claim more than half of total shipments. Nokia is shipping more Symbian handsets than WP handsets and their smartphone share has fallen to 7%, down from 16% in H2 2011

OpenSlate released findings about the top 1000 YouTube Channels; measuring top channels metrics around Engagement, Consistency and Influence and ranks who the top are by category.

The findings show that in 30 days the top 1000 channels produce 30,000 videos - totaling 173 days of viewing time- that generate roughly 11.3 billion views.

The study also looked at the Top 1000's social engagement, and found that the average Top 1000 channel generates 44,000 social interactions on Facebook each week.

As the Infographic illustrates, music and gaming dominate the ranks of popular channels on YouTube, accounting collectively for 45% of the 1,000 most-viewed. Comedy (14%), entertainment (13%), and How-to & Style (7%) round out the top five categories.

The top 1,000 channels generate an average of $23,000 each month from YouTube ads alone. That’s not including the many sponsorships and product endorsements channel managers sign themselves.

Creating a digital strategy, or any strategy for that matter, you need to:

#Know where you want to be

To decide on your destination, consider how various digital capabilities – email marketing, social media, paid search, and so on – will help your business accomplish its near term business goals and longer term strategies.

Bring knowledge of your business objectives to a strategy session.

Combine them with industry and competitor research, knowledge of your customers, and analysis of digital trends to define your 'DesiredFuture'.

#Know where you are at

With your destination in mind, examine and document the relevant aspects of you 'Current State'.

A thorough assessment of your current state will include more than a listing of your websites and eBusiness IT projects.It will include a look at your governance, culture, processes and capabilities as well. It is also likely that your desired future will have impact on the culture and processes of Marketing and Operations; impacting Sales and Product Development.

#Understand what separates you from your goal

Perform a 'Gap Analysis' by determining how the various aspects of your current state need to change in order for you to reach your desired future.

#Determine how to get there

Take the initiatives list into a planning session and prioritize them against competing priorities and put together a multi-year program, a 'Digital Roadmap'.

Hopefully, this roadmap will guide you to your future state by addressing the gaps you’ve identified

Are you a little overwhelmed by the browser choices available to you? Have you been sticking to your old favorite because you never had time to really see what the other browsers had to offer? Does your current browser have advanced security options?

Does it sync your settings across devices? Can you manage your tabs easily?

Smartphones are becoming an integral part of our lives, and not just for their capacity to make phone calls. Some might even say our smartphones define us, telling the world more about us than we even realize.

Our Smartphones have become our music players, our GPS systems, our photography studios, our link to breaking news, the way we entertain ourselves—truly they have become extensions of ourselves. Some might even say our Smartphones define us, telling the world more about us than we even realize. They keep us connected to friends, help with directions and give us access to the Internet’s infinite wonders.

But how awesome is too awesome? And when does appreciation become addiction?

15% of respondents to a recent Gazelle.com survey said they’d go rather go without sex for a weekend than give up their iPhone for a few days.

4% said they’ve actually used their iPhone during sex, and 65% said they couldn’t live without their trusty device.

40% of respondents said they’d rather go without bathing than without their iPhone.

The Internet education portal OnlineColleges recently gathered data from a number of sources including Gazelle, comScore and the Pew Internet & American Life Project to produce the following Infographic. It shows not only that we may be getting a little too attached to our Smartphones, but also why we love our devices and what we use them for most.

Among many interesting findings: iPhone and Android owners have more positive outlooks on life than their Blackberry-carrying brethren; city dwellers are the most mobile savvy; and social media, gaming and weather apps rule the market. But whether addicted or simply enthusiastic, it’s easy to see why Smartphone owners are so appreciative of modern mobile technology;

More importantly, where do you fall into the Smartphone personality spectrum? Does your Smartphone define you? If so, what is it saying about you?

Have patent lawsuits become the large corporations’ substitute for innovation?

With the Apple-Samsung trial coming to an end and more and more cases heading to the courts, CEO.com decided to take a look at the driving forces behind these patent wars and what is being done to stop the rising number of casualties.

Adobe Illustrator is a vector drawing program. It is often used to create logos, icons, illustrations, charts, Infographics, t-shirts, business cards, stationery, envelopes, packaging design – you name it.

All in all, it is mostly used to create high resolution graphics, which can later be printed as well.

Unlike Photoshop, which stores image information in dots, Illustrator uses mathematical equations when you draw shapes. Vector drawings can be scaled to fit skyscraper-size banners; raster images cannot. Because of this, Illustrator is used to make drawings that needs to scale easily – things like logos and all the basic tools needed for designing a logo.

Open Illustrator and follow along to really get a feel for Adobe’s amazing vector art program.

The Manual includes:

Learning where things are in the Illustrator workspace

Basics of logo design, including step-by-step examples of which tools to use for what.

Step-by-step instructions with easy-to-follow, annotated screenshots.

Everything from basic drawing to rounded corners to effects to rotating to circles.

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.